Vehicle controls have been developed and refined over a period of years to fulfill a variety of needs. With respect to a motor vehicle such as the automobile, it is essential that the direction and speed of movement be controlled. As is well known, the direction of an automobile is now normally controlled by a rotatable steering wheel, and speed is normally controlled by foot pedals which include an accelerator (throttle) for increasing (or maintaining) the speed of the vehicle and a brake for decreasing the speed (or stopping) the vehicle, with the steering wheel, accelerator and brake being normally positioned inside the passenger compartment so as to be readily available to the driver.
While the normal mode of control for a motor vehicle, such as an automobile, has been satisfactory for most individuals, improvements are still felt to be warranted, and some handicapped individuals have not been able to control a motor vehicle using the now normally accepted control system. With respect to handicapped individuals, efforts have heretofore been made to develop different control systems for a vehicle that would enable certain handicapped individuals to control such a vehicle.
Such efforts have included, for example, a modified control system using mechanical controls to enable paraplegics who have lost the use of their lower extremities to manipulate the throttle and brake by hand with no change in steering (since the steering wheel is now normally rotated by hand).
A simple hand-operated "T" handle has also been developed for use by handicapped individuals still capable of rotating a conventional steering wheel, with the "T" handle controlling the throttle and brake through the use of pneumatic servos.
An adaptive control system for a vehicle has also been heretofore developed for use by certain quadriplegics capable of limited arm motion. In at least one such system, a steering wheel of reduced size has been used in conjunction with a pivotable pedestal having the steering wheel mounted thereon so that pivoting movement of the pedestal in on direction (usually by pushing the pedestal forward) causes the vehicle to be accelerated and pivoting movement in the opposite direction causes the brake to be applied. For higher level quadriplegics unable to exert the arm motion necessary for rotation of the steering wheel, a modification has also been heretofore developed which replaces the steering wheel with a tri-pin grip.
Still another control system has been heretofore developed for use by high level quadriplegics which utilizes a small joystick to control the three primary vehicle control functions (i.e., throttle, brake and steering) with the system depending upon utilization of hydraulic servos involving a large and complex array of pumps and valves.
The control system utilized for the lunar rover (Apollo moon missions) allowed the operating astronaut to control acceleration, braking and steering with one hand through the use of a rather complicated hand controller having potentiometers mounted therein to sense the position of the controller and drive wheel connected electric motors to effect propulsion and steering of the vehicle.
While heretofore known and/or utilized modified control systems have allowed some handicapped individuals to operate a motor vehicle, such systems have not proved to be completely successful, at least for use by some handicapped individuals, since some high level quadriplegics (C-5 for example) are not able to exert even the limited arm motions necessary to operate such modified control systems. In addition, some such heretofore known and/or utilized control systems have required complex modifications which have made installation difficult and/or increased maintenance requirements, have made removal and application to other vehicles difficult if not impossible from a practical standpoint, have made controls more difficult even to the point of being unsafe at least at high speeds, and/or have required major alterations of the vehicle control system such that it was impossible to operate the vehicle in the normal mode after the vehicle has been adapted for use with the modified controlled system.